Rails & Ladders

Not every trip needs a waystone. For the short, in-world hops around a base or across a ravine, three builds do the work: zip rails for speed across, vertical rails for climbing walls, and rope ladders for dropping down. Each one is a real structure you place in the world, so once it is up, anyone can use it.

Zip Rails

Zip rails are ziplines for fast horizontal runs. String a line between two points and ride it, covering open ground far quicker than walking. They shine across gaps a bridge would be tedious to build: canyon to canyon, tower to tower, the far bank of a river.

Set the anchor at each end, connect the line, and grab on to slide. The steeper the drop between the two ends, the faster the ride — so a line that loses a little height as it runs carries you along at a good clip.

Vertical Rails

Ordinary rails only run flat or on a gentle slope. Vertical rails let a minecart climb a wall dead straight, up or down. Lay the track against a vertical face, roll your cart onto it, and it rides the wall like an elevator car.

This turns a minecart line into a full loop: run flat along the ground, climb a cliff, and keep going at the top without ever stepping out of the cart. It is the cleanest way to move carts of ore up out of a deep pit.

Rope Ladders

Rope ladders are for going down. Fix one at the lip of a cliff or the mouth of a shaft, and it unrolls downward, extending as far as you need to reach the bottom. Climb it like any ladder.

The point is speed of deployment. Instead of stacking ladder blocks one at a time down a hundred-block drop, you drop a single rope and it pays out the whole way. Pull it back up when you are done and the shaft is clear again.

See also

• Elevators — redstone-block floor travel inside a build
• Waystones — instant hops between named stops
• Travel overview — the full travel toolkit